I love this kind of supermarket gardening! Others I have tried with success--as long as your local grocery story supplies the produce: mango (easy) sugar cane (even easier) dates (pits need bottom heat to hasten germination) loquat "Eriobotra japonica"(fruit can be found around June in more gourmet/specialty produce markets--at least here) Guava (mine has flowered and fruited in a container) Ginger (easy) Taro and related tropical tubers ("Elephant ears"; easy) coconut (you need an unhusked, fresh coconut, sandy soil, heat and patience--can take up to 6 months just to germinate) And many others.. Happy shopping!

Well, ladies, you have inspired me! I should have known what gardeners would answer. I will try to use mostly what I have available now to keep costs down. I have a purple smoke tree (still in the pot), a Rosy Glow barberry, and lots of seedlings here and there of red bud and kolreuteria paniculata or Golden Rain Trees. Then there is the weigelia 'wine and roses', a white clematis, a dwarf My Monet weigela.....all in the pot ghetto. I have maybe 20 Hyperion daylilies, and 10 or so Blue Berry Candy daylilies. It will be a start. Thank you all for the support and ideas. You can bet I will post pictures of during and after the planting. I promise that I will actually try to plan this area........unlike my usual method. I may even use a tape measure! Oh, I forgot all the iris I need to divide and relocate.

Re: Lobbii Hahahahahahahahaha. Yeah, sure is hard to be mad at such a faithful and beautiful bloomer. You stick it in some corner, just to get it out of the way, and it goes: Hi :) I made you some flowers. Ooops, I did it again. :) Hello, flower delivery. :) I love you even if you don't love me. :) flowers :) flowers :) flowers :) flowers :) It does have a unique sort of beauty, once you get over wanting it to be like the others. I honestly think, in a large space, like an entryway, it would create quite the elegant waterfall. @ GT: "honeybadger" lol lol lol lol lol lol lol I won't forget that one. Re: Macgillivrayii I had to Google macgillivrayii to see what you were talking about and I see exactly what you mean. They do not translate to photo at all! I think it's because what makes them beautiful is they are thin, but thin like a knife... hard and crisp. It's very textural. They have sharp edges. And the way they drip vertically from the vine makes their hooks seem very pronounced, like talons. Re: Polystachya I wouldn't worry about it not growing for you right away. I think most Hoyas take time off growing new foliage and then do a bunch in a long spurt. (Just like me with filing!) It's just more obvious when a large Hoya is standing still. I find it to be a very dependable grower - faster than most of my rigidas. I took the most modest 1-node cutting possible from my sister's plant last fall and over the winter it turned into a very respectable young plant. Re: Big leaf plants vs Rapid growing plants It is hard to get mad at fast growing plants. They're kind of annoying because they're always causing work and problems, swarming and tangling into things they would do best to leave alone or at best transforming into huge wreaths that fall over every time you look at them. (I should just get a big ol' wreath frame, cut a hole in the bottom for a pot, and wrap tannaensis around it.) But then you're like, aww, okay you happy little dude. Re: greentoe's new plants Ischnopus & Montana. When I think of this type of Hoya, I always think of this quote from CB 6/17/12 regarding flavescens IML 1117: This is one of those NE New Guinea species collected and published by R, Schlechter in the early 1900s. We hoya collectors of the period between 1970 and 1990 used to refer to them as "Them Yaller Thangs" as there were around a half dozen yellow flowered hoyas with varying widths of hairy borders around each flower. They were often thought to be a single species but a careful, close up look showed some of them with big fat roundish corona lobes and some long slender ones. There were also differences in the hairy border widths and shapes on the flower petals and differences in the calyx lobes and the pollinaria. I always have liked Hoya flavescens best of the bunch. So, now I also think of them as "them yaller thangs." :) Obscura is a pretty plant even green. Everyone loves it. All its forms, from the white flowered one to Sunrise, are super aggressive growers. You might as well start it on a big hoop from day one. It won't stay little long. I personally think the aff. erythrostemma has the prettiest leaves, kind of like they are exaggerated versions of the other erythrostemmas (more veined, more succulent and hard), but every erythrostemma I have collected has been sweet and pretty. It has similar flowers to mindorensis, but is much much much more attractive leaf-wise. There is only one mindorensis with pretty leaves, imo: IML 0768. The others are all like floppy dog ears, so you should just choose them for the flowers LOL. Aldrichii is a great choice!! I feel like this one gets ignored a lot, but it is such an angel. Very beautiful. Yeah, you have to have a wibergiae, for sure. There's nothing like those metallic pink splashes. It's kind of annoying that it's so big, but it's worth a big leaf plant slot. Haha I've been reorganizing my plants (more on this in another thread) and in the process I realized I was able to fill an entire flat (18 slots) with only plants with finlaysonii type leaves. I didn't realize how many I had before, because they were scattered all about. I think my favorite actual finlaysonii is EPC 057, but the various related "sp." tend to have the most pronounced veining (e.g. Kalimantan, Maenam, etc). I do, however, find Ripple Leaf to be the fastest grower, so it's easy to have a big beautiful plant quickly. It's also nice because it has thinner flatter leaves, so it displays very different from the others. I always think it's a shame that EA doesn't offer fungii instead of carnosa. We probably have enough sources of carnosa out in the world, and fungii is like carnosa +1. No offense, carnosa. I am enjoying your ordering frenzy. There's really nothing like that initial period of building up your collection, when every conversation leads to acquisitions of 8+, and you can't read a thread without tripping over a wonderful Hoya you didn't know about. I didn't go through that stage without making tons of mistakes, but it was a very happy time - like falling in love. And like romantic infatuation, it will eventually grow into a more mellow love, so I think you should live it up and give into all your wild impulses like a crazy person. You may feel more dignified once you are saying things like "I really only want one cutting - I don't have room for more," but stage 1 is waaaaaay more fun!!

Apricots would grow well in that area. Also almonds. Mulberry may be a possibility, but I'd do some research first to make sure you get a good tasting variety. (Black is usually tastier than red or white) A fig tree would be a good idea. (But be aware the trees can get messy with all the fruit dropping and rotting on the ground if you don't pick them) A walnut tree, but don't plant it close to anything else because walnut trees release a substance into the soil to make it difficult for other plants to grow nearby. (Be aware the downside is that a large walnut tree can attract loud flocks of crows) There are many other fruits that you could grow but these are the ones that will grow well where you live.